Good evening everyone, When i started buying coins I knew the best way to learn about fakes would be morgan dollars as they are one of the most faked coins around. There are many ways of spotting a fake and people who have studied morgan dollars can see a bad fake miles away. The problem with me as with every beginner was that I did not have that eye sight and simply I´m not there yet as I can be fooled if not careful. So I use the old tricks magnets, weight and something my mentor taught me " sound ". Morgan dollars have a beautiful high pitched sound when struck with an object. He used a small wooded stick. And as I have been in the music scene the first thing that came to me was " what key is it in " and sure enough I tried all my morgan´s and they are all in the same key. I had in my possession 5 fakes and even fakes with 90% silver. What I do is use my guitar tuner on my iphone and to this day I have found some fakes just by using the sound of the coins. This is off course not the best and most likely the worst way of spotting a fakes as you have to hold it in the worst possible way. But still I think it´s kinda fun and with china getting better all the time this might help. Siggi
I'm not at all hesitant to give a well circulated Morgan or Peace dollar a light ping test. Especially ones I haven't bought yet. We do own an electronic tuner. I never thought of using it to "listen" to the ping instead of my worn out ears.
I remember many years ago going to a coin shop in Delaware, and these two guys were chatting it up about fake coins, specifically trade dollars and key morgans. Turns out the shop owner pulled out half a tray of counterfeit pieces to show the both of us. Let's just say, 45 minute crash course in counterfeit detection=saved my rawhide on several occasions years later.
